


Everything I Dare To Be

by mansikka



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Insecure Alec Lightwood, M/M, Nervous Alec, POV Alec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 08:10:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11596542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mansikka/pseuds/mansikka
Summary: Alec is drawn to Magnus, and tries to talk himself into taking what Magnus is offering.





	Everything I Dare To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :) very, very new Malec convert here, but oh, how I am converted!
> 
> This doesn't really have a particular setting, I suppose it's pre-1x12 canon-divergent, if it fits anywhere :)
> 
> x

There is a feeling, a draw, a pull that Alec can’t quite put a name to, an urge he doesn’t think he has the experience to understand.

It’s when Magnus looks at him, when he sees him, when he _knows_ him, like nobody else in his world has ever taken the time to, as though he is worth the pause, the stumble, the momentary loss of words.

It’s when he touches him, soft, in passing, that discreet brush of fingers against his arm that roots him deep, grounds him like he’ll never need to fear again, yet sends him spinning off balance as though Magnus has replaced his gravity with something different, timeless, reverent.

It’s when he’s just with him. Magnus can be all the way across a room, across the city even sometimes, yet it still feels as though he is standing right there next to him, his skin whispering against Alec’s own in an innocent brush. Wherever he is, wherever Alec turns, wherever he looks, Magnus is there. It is both a comfort and a concern, and has quickly become his constant.

Alec is… enchanted by Magnus, mesmerised, just as much as he is terrified. Though that terror isn’t borne of fear of him, but rather of what he represents, what Magnus has stirred within him that leaves Alec laying awake at night, and walking haunted by thoughts of him throughout the day.

Magnus distracts him. From duty, from responsibility, from the simplicity that was Alec’s existence until he came along. And though he wouldn’t have it any other way, can’t imagine waking to a world in which Magnus does not exist, Alec doesn’t know what to _do_ with this. Not when he barely knows himself enough to be sure of who he is, and all he could be.

Alec does know, that he wants Magnus, but that’s not something that frightens him it all. It’s that he can have him; Magnus has made that abundantly clear. Magnus is his, any time Alec chooses. The very moment that he asks. Magnus is his for the taking, and that openness, that offering, that acceptance of Alec, just as he is, perhaps that is the thing that is most intimidating about this of all.

But since Alec doesn’t know, has never been educated on how to just _exist_ , how is he to understand how to do this? How will he know when to finally give in, when is the right moment to let go of the idea that he is risking all that he is, just by being who, and what, he wants to be?

He wants to be _his_.

But what if Magnus’ infinite patience for his uncertainty, and his continual caution, is not the bottomless well that Alec is desperate for it to be? What if Magnus gives up on him, becomes tired of waiting, just at the point when he finds the courage to extend his hand?

How will he ever live with himself, if he doesn’t _allow_ himself to truly live?

An intake of breath. A steeling of spine. A final glance over the thick, opulent barrier that is the door to Magnus’ loft, and Alec tells himself he is ready. He raises his hand, knuckles brushing over the smoothness of wood, then closes his eyes, pleading with himself to just knock.


End file.
